The increasing trend of workers using consumer devices in the Enterprise is creating challenges for IT departments, says a new survey from IDG Enterprise.
The survey, completed by more than 1,900 IT and security decision-makers from a range of industries, shows that the consumerization of IT trend is being embraced by a majority (72%) of the respondents’ organizations, which provides employees flexibility on using personal/consumer devices to perform work tasks.
Currently, smartphones (68%) are the employee owned device most supported by IT departments.
The business benefits of the consumerization of IT trend are currently less tangible, with the largest positive impact contributing to user satisfaction (79%), user productivity (76%) and process efficiency collaboration (68%). While end-users see the benefits of consumerization of IT, organizations need to stay aware of adoption risks.
Security concerns were a trend throughout the study. When asked about the greatest challenge in embracing the consumerization of IT trend, respondents cited security (82%) and lack of control (55%). These concerns provide vendors with the opportunity to alleviate pain points and gain competitive advantage by offering products and services that provide security for devices (85%), integrate into the organization’s IT architecture (83%) and manage the proliferation of devices (69%).
Key findings include:
- Three-quarters (72%) of participants have embraced the use of consumerization of IT by allowing employees to use their own device to perform work tasks either away from work or at work (48%), expanding the list of devices provided to employees to include more consumer devices (42%) and provides an allowance for employees to buy personal devices to use at work (11%).
- Mobile devices — including smartphones (79%) and tablets (68%) — rank highest in the types of personal devices organizations will support and BlackBerry Phones (68%), iPhones (61%) and iPads (54%) are the top consumer devices supported by IT departments.
- Security is the number one challenge for the majority of organizations (82%) and it poses the biggest negative impact for organizations. Security is also the biggest growth potential for vendors (85%).
“Technology vendors, especially in the mobile space, have great opportunity to capitalize on this growing trend where employees are selecting the device they would like to use to perform work functions,” said Bob Melk, SVP, group publisher & CMO, IDG Enterprise.
“Understanding organizational concerns and working with IT departments to develop policies and procedures and create business value around consumerization of IT will provide vendors with a competitive advantage and provide IT decision-makers with additional opportunities to meet end-user demands while securing organizational assets.
